The Challenger Tribute

Summer 2009: Nancy King Lillian

2009-07-29T12:56:00.013-05:00

There were so many things I wanted to say. My brother Lance and his wife Marie were seated with Rose-Marie by the blue damask casket. Lance's sons, friends and in-laws stood behind. I had so much I wanted to tell them about our mother, Nancy King Lillian, for whom we were performing a last service this cold day in February at the little cemetery on Grand Island, New York. So many memories ...

Some memories had their patina of pain -- reminders of the long obscenity of Alzheimer's and the ordeal it represented to my brother and sister-in-law. They lived near my mother and their suffering was horrible and their endurance, heroic. And one doesn't butt heads for a lifetime with an alpha woman like my mother without the occasional bruise. But we have choices in life, and one is to insist on joy, and the moments that came to mind there and then were just that: joyous.

Such as when L.E. and Marie told Mama that she was going to be a grandmother -- and all she could do was giggle. Such as the day I found I'd passed the Bar, and called Mama at my grandmother's place in California.-- sadistically, drawing out the news for as long as she could stand it. I was rewarded by the sound of both Mama and my grandmother bawling happily on the other end of the line. Such as when I was 7 years old and sat outside of my brother's nursery, listening to her rock him to sleep, singing "Bye Baby Bunting" over and over again -- the happiest human sound I've ever heard.

But this cold day in February was really cold, and some of the folks were of Mama's age -- early 80s. As I spoke I saw Lance brush a tear away - and make "hurry up" motions with his hand. So I simply mentioned the stop Rosy and I made on our way north, at Gregory, the tiny cotton town in Arkansas where Mama was born, and the long world-spanning road she traveled afterwards with the man she would soon rest beside. One memory I did share was all about them.

It was of a time when my father and I went to the New Orleans airport to meet Mama as she flew in from California. Dad stood in the concourse, six-foot-four, long-limbed and lanky, greeting his "Nen" with a raised eyebrow as she scampered up, smiling. It did me good to see the affection Lance and I came from, and it did me good to recall it that cold February morning on Grand Island. All was well. My folks were together again, now and forever, "and not just in this cold ground."

Not enough, but ... you can't say enough, can you?

Winter 2008 - 2009: Anni Green

2009-01-01T12:53:00.002-06:00

As I said in our editorial, Rosy lost her brother Merritt in mid-November, 2008.

Merritt lived on the water and for the water. A sailor always, his greatest fortune was in his mate – Anni Green.

In December, Anni hosted a memorial at their home on the Magothy River, and Merritt’s father Joe held a similar service in Florida. Anni handled both with dignity and grace, making a terrible time better for her husband’s friends and family. At what must have been her most difficult moments, Anni proved herself a one hundred per cent class act.

She’s not an Sfer, just a light unto her friends and family, and this Challenger salutes her.

Spring-Summer 2008 - Sheryl Birkhead

2008-07-12T14:06:00.005-05:00

The CHALLENGER Tribute is a nod to a lady who has brought joy to our fannish lives. The delightful cover she gives this issue and the many years of wonderful fillos preceding it, her efforts to hail her fellow fan artists, and her sweet, caring, delightful self are more than enough reason to recognize SHERYL BIRKHEAD this go-round. But we'll let her speak for herself...

Winter 2007-08 - Ruth Judkowitz

2008-01-25T12:56:00.000-06:00

We met in the great Los Angeles apa, LASFAPA, and once we danced around the Watts Towers like kids around a Christmas tree. She played her guitar and sang a song she wrote herself, and beamed like a star when we applauded. She joined SFPA and came to Mardi Gras
and graced Southern conventions. She has shot videos, written music, explored harmonic therapy, and made great and beautiful the world. Generous, hilarious, beautiful, brilliant … that’s the t’Ruth.

Spring-Summer 2007 - Astrid Anderson Bear

2007-06-10T17:39:00.001-05:00

In 1967, when I was 18 years old and the littlest of the Little Men, I attended a party at Poul Anderson's house in Orinda, California. I knew Poul and Karen, of course -- generous souls that they were, they had driven me to my first club meeting. But I had never met the third member of the family... I remember the very moment. I was talking with the late Jerry Jacks, asking him about the ancient fannish schtick, "Gnu". All of a sudden we -- and the room -- were utterly overwhelmed, in an explosion of red hair and personality. She was wearing a dark cloak, and carrying a real, straight-from-the -Star-Trek-set tribble. Astrid had come into the room.

Astrid has never left. She's been a radiance in the science fiction firmament all of her life. Among her excellences, costuming. At Louiscon in 1969 she and her mother premiered the most famous masquerade presentation of all time, "The Bat and the Bitten" -- Charlie Williams' illo above depicts that incredible costume. Jay Kay Klein's photo to right shows her with Ron Bounds in '71, as "Poseidon & Friend". She chaired Costume-Con 2 in 1984. But Astrid's SF interests haven't been restricted to masquerades. With her husband, Greg Bear, she serves on the advisory board for Seattle's Science Fiction Museum & Hall of Fame. They have two kids, Erik and Alexandra. Astrid, mother to a 20-year-old man? A 17-year-old lady? Pardon the astonishment of someone who knew her when she was 14, still wearing a huge black cloak, still playing with a genuine tribble.

How fortunate those of us who have been privileged to know this lady named for the stars.

Winter 2006/7 - MICHELLE ZELLICH

2007-02-04T00:57:00.000-06:00

I have adored Michelle for decades – well, for two decades, anyway, ever since my New Orleans bid against her St. Louis for the rights to the ’88 worldcon. On our side, we had the City that Care Forgot – the French Quarter, jazz, the spirit of Louis Armstrong, the spell of the Old South, plantations, music, mudbugs, romance, Mardi Gras – and they had Michelle. We won, but we were lucky.

Then, as now, I thought her a sweet, lovely, warm, wonderful presence, and now she is something more. For many years Michelle and her husband Rich have chaired Archon in St. Louis, one of the country’s most important regionals; in 2007 they and the convention will host the NASFiC, the year’s most important North American con. Michelle also edits The Insider, an excellent genre-spannning genzine.

Con runner, zine master … and a sublime foot masseuse. At the last worldcon Michelle was downright therapeutic. My feet hurt. My feet hurt badly. My feet felt like someone had been driving spikes into them – from the bottom. I admitted the same to my lovely friend – and she offered to rub them for me. Rosy may curse me for an inconstant dirtbag, a rat’s ass, a slime, a virus, a dog, a snake, an eel, a giraffe … but I gratefully let Michelle do her thing.

But la Zellich was no coquette. She attacked my podes like a strangler. My tarsals were mere pizza dough under her thumbs. I yelped – but the pain I felt was only the goodbye spasm of my former ache, fleeing in terror. The divine lady from St. Louis left me with feet that felt … fabulous.

Thought I was something special, until I spotted Michelle giving a footrub to Larry Niven. Hope he appreciated it!

Rich Zellich, treasure that woman!

Summer 2006 - MARTINA KLICPEROVA BAKER

2006-08-25T01:10:00.000-05:00

Once again, Challenger steps outside the strict boundaries of science fiction and its fandom to find its tributee – this time a genuine patriotic revolutionary, scholar and academic who in the years before Katrina, filled Orleanians’ lives with joy.

We first met Martina when, on the urging of the late S.F.er Zetta Dillie, the Czech professor – devout anti-Communist and friend of Vlacev Havel – came to New Orleans to visit. To the right, her first encounter with Spanish Moss. Martina made even Louisiana’s state fungus beautiful.

On that same trip, Martina posed at Dennis Dolbear’s house with a Confederate cap and one of DD’s gats. That’s a real gun, by the way. Yih

Martina made such a hit with us Orleanians that we begged her not only to extend her visit, but to defect and stay. Indeed, it wasn’t too many years until her country threw out the Reds. And not too long after that, she returned …

Possessing a Ph.D. – and some weird degree above a Ph.D. – Martina is fascinated by culture, and it was inevitable that she should come to a Mardi Gras. Here she is with ye editor and my neighbor, Cynthia Snowden, at a Carnival parade. Cindy adored Martina, who returned her friendship with infinite kindness and patience. No doubt other feelings came to play on Bourbon Street, below …

Every time Martina left our environs, she broke our hearts, but never so much as when she married James Baker in San Francisco. The Bakers live out west, now, but we keep in touch – always hoping Martina will grace us with those three little words … Moose and squirrel Uhhh... 'SEE YOU SOON!'

Winter 2005/6 - CYNTHIA MARIE SNOWDEN

2005-12-20T00:23:00.000-06:00

Cindy Snowden never wrote a book, published a fanzine, or organized a club or a convention. She was simply the best neighbor I ever had.

When they were kids her brothers and sisters called her “Pepper.” But from shortly after she became my neighbor, to me she was always “Boo.” She was a severe diabetic, with a learning disability, who wanted nothing more than to be a friend and have friends. I was her friend, for 17 years.

It was a job. Cindy couldn’t drive, so I took her on errands, drove her to movies, moved her stuff, and generally kept an eye on her. Missing meals or any excessive excitement could push her over the line. I lost count of the times I dialed 9-1-1 because of her hypoglycemic fits and diabetic comas. Being Cindy’s friend also meant you had to take special care with your words. One time, in a thoughtless fugue, I remembered Judgment at Nuremberg and asked her to make a sentence out of “hare,” “hunter” and “field.” She couldn’t. “You’re not makin’ fun of me, are you?” she asked, reducing me to an inch in height.

But there were happy moments, too. Despite the limitations on her life, Boo did her best to enjoy herself. She loved movies – Lord of the Rings was a big hit, and after a member of her church gave her a child’s book on the Titanic, she sat me down and read me the whole thing. One time I took her to the Orleans courthouse and showed her the stars of JFK, which was being filmed there. She hugged Sissy Spacek and sneakily checked out Kevin Costner’s rear. (Boo denied that – with a laugh: “I don’t care nothin’ about his booty!”) When Geri Sullivan came to town to work on the N4 program book, Cindy asked her for her address so she could send her a Christmas card. Kindly, Geri said sure. That was typical; whenever Cindy met anyone, she was that person’s friend.

She liked to help me collate Challenger, and for my birthday bought me the heavy-duty stapler with which many issues have been bound. “Put that in your fanzine,” she’d tell me when something struck her as cool – like the time she read a verse in church, or the day a fellow attorney took us sailing, and Cindy joyfully took the tiller and “drove the boat,” or the night she roused me from death’s door – I had the flu – to drive her across town to see her father for the first time in 25 years. Hearing her say, “Daddy? I’m Cynthia!” was a moment I’ll keep forever.

And there was the night – without a thought for herself – she chased off a thief trying to steal my car. Later, she testified at his trial. The judge praised her as “a good friend, a good neighbor, and a good citizen.” That was just like her. Boo repaid friendship with friendship. She stood up for her friends.

Twice, to flee oncoming hurricanes, I threw Cindy into my car and fled to high ground. This time, 340 miles distant, and with only a day’s notice, I couldn’t save her from Katrina. But she didn’t want to be saved. As a girl in the Ninth Ward, one of the poorest areas of New Orleans, she’d survived the monster hurricanes Betsy and Camille in her grandfather’s flimsy house. Now she lived in Raphael Manor, a solid brick three-story facility for the disabled, where she felt safe. More to the point, she had friends among the old folks there, friends she trusted – friends she felt needed her. She would never have left them. She told me, “We’ll see this through together!”

After Katrina, Rosy and I were quickly able to locate most of our people. John Guidry, Dennis Dolbear and Joey Grillot were all safe in Atlanta. JoAnn Montalbano prospered across Pontchartrain in Fulton. Justin and Annie Winston even spent a weekend with us in Shreveport, visiting Jeff and Jenny Potter with us and sharing their store of MREs.

But it took us quite some time to find out about Boo. I’d spoken to her right after the hurricane, before the levee gave way. She sounded chipper, and said that the National Guard had told the residents at Raphael to sit tight, as they still had running water. The levee broke later that day. Calls to her number brought only busy signals, then beeps, then endless unanswered rings.

Days passed with no word. If Cindy had been evacuated, why hadn’t she called? Twice Rosy and I made plans to go to New Orleans and wade through the “Toxic Gumbo” of floodwaters to Raphael Manor. Twice we were talked out of it. We called FEMA, we called the police, we e-mailed politicians and newspapers, I sent flyers to every evacuee shelter for which I could find an address. The sheriff of Ascension Parish sent deputies to investigate Raphael Manor. They entered the flooded first floor, called, heard no response. There was a sign which said that the building had been evacuated. I felt relieved. But where was old Boo?

That very evening, we knew.

A lady named Carol called Cynthia’s stepmother, Jackie, who then called me. Carol claimed she had lived in Raphael Manor. She was vague and disoriented; since leaving Raphael she’d been on a boat, a helicopter, a plane and a bus, and didn’t even know what city she was in. But her recollections were too detailed to be discounted.

Miss Carol told Jackie that Cindy came up to the building’s second floor after the flood hit. She gave her hot dogs for dinner, but Cindy kept eating candy – not the best diet for a severe diabetic. Finally, Cindy put down blankets and a pillow near the elevator, laid down and went to sleep. Her coma was probably already upon her. During the night, in her sleep, she stopped breathing. When the policemen finally came to Raphael Manor, Miss Carol told them about Cindy, but they said, “We haven’t time for that now.” It was two weeks before they came back.

I cannot know what Boo thought as she laid down that night. I’m sure she knew that she was among friends – friends whom she cared for, friends who would stand by her – not just the residents of Raphael Manor but me and Rosy and all the rest who loved her and cared for her. The last thing I’d told her was that the beautiful Czech academic Martina Klicperova Baker, whom she practically worshiped, had asked about her from California. Cindy had been surprised and moved. Perhaps she thought of that as she closed her eyes to Katrina and the world.

It would be a blessing if she dreamed, then, and not of the hurricane and its miseries. It would be a blessing if she dreamed of the friends she’d made over the years, of the daughter she’d put up for adoption and whose life she’d followed through letters from the adoptive mom, or of that Christmas Rosy and I spent with her, when she cried because she never thought she’d have friends who wanted to be with her on such a day. If I were so constituted, I’d pray that she dreamed of her Aunt Betty, the gentle widow who cared for her for many years, and of her grandfather, who gave her patience and hope and love in a world which has so little patience and hope and love for a special person.

If there is a God, and He regrets the obscenities like Katrina He visits upon this world, then He has mercy, and at the end of her dreams Cindy’s grandfather and Aunt Betty came to her, touched her and woke her and carried her away into peace and happiness and beauty and light. Where we will see her again, when we rest with Christ in Paradise.

Summer 2005 - Nicki Lynch

2005-07-16T23:13:00.000-05:00

Remember 1992? MagiCon? The Hugo Awards? The Best Fanzine Hugo? Remember how the envelope given MC Spider Robinson had Lan’s Lantern written on it and the slide projected above the stage read Mimosa? Remember how poor Spider and poor “Lan” Lascowski, bless him, had to come out and reveal there had been an awful mistake? Remember how, when Mimosa was announced as the true winner, a stunned Rich Lynch wandered the aisle in a daze, looking for his co-editor - and wife? And how we shut the ceremony down chanting “We want Nicki! We want Nicki!” until they brought Nicki Lynch out to give her acceptance speech, which was “Thanks, guys!”?

Remember all that? Remember ConFrancisco, the following year? Remember Nicki’s second Hugo acceptance speech? The one I’ve parodied as “That’s right, Rich! Everyone should do fanzines because they are nice!”?

The Lynchi have picked up four other Hugos since then. But as much as you remember, I’ll bet I remember more ...

I remember when Rich and Nicki lived in Chattanooga and revolutionized printed fanac in the South. I remember Chat, their outstanding newszine - which introduced to fandom the merry maniacs of Knoxville, including Charlie Williams, whose brilliance adorned the Noreascon 4 program book. I remember when they hosted Chattacon, and a Corflu, and won the Rebel Award for their contributions to the region. I remember when they tried to ignite interest in a regional genzine and, when that didn’t fly, created Mimosa.

I remember when I created Challenger, how Rich and Nicki encouraged me to enter the universe of genzines - and, whenever I’d lose a Hugo to them, how they simply said, “You’ll get there!”

But mostly I remember friendship. “Mistying” Indiana Jones in ‘Nooga. Scarfing superb BBQ in Birmingham. Gossiping and gabbing at a dozen worldcon chow-downs. Crawling miles of corridors at con after con over decades of friendship, friendship that has buoyed me up when fate’s waters have threatened to drag me under.

Sweet, square, noble, honest, caring, funny, generous, and cuter than a button. When Lynn Hickman learned Nicki Lynch’s full first name, he sang “Put another Nickilyn, in the nickelodeon ...” Impossible. There could never be another Nicki Lynch.